Introduction[Top]So, gentlemen, it's finally come to that point. I've decided to rid myself of this demon. At first it was nice, but after a long time, this build has begun to hold me back. I've decided that it's time to share it-- the secret behind my 85% TvZ win rate. Anyone who's watched my stream has seen me execute this build countless times, and effortlessly crush Zerg players who are substantially better than me. It is the Thorship into Thor all-in TvZ. It is a brutal 1 base all-in, and probably the most successful of its kind. It will only work once against a good player, and it requires a lot of apm. Properly executed without failures of drop micro or marine splitting, I have never lost with it. That being said, I'm bad and will occasionally derp up a split, but even so, it wins 85% of the time in low-mid Master League, according to sc2gears. This build does not function in high master league, as your typical skilled zerg opponent will react appropriately to a slow 1 base all-in. Do not use this build for high level play-- it relies on your opponent being bad (mid master or lower) for it to win.

This guide is long. It contains within it all my knowledge from the 100+ TvZ games I've played with this build, 96 of them in Master League. If you read this and understand it, and you have the mechanics, you will be able to execute the build as well as I can. You will achieve the winrate I have. You will become a god.

Without any further ado, I present Blazinghand's Thorship into Thor-allin TvZ.

Background[Top]My Thorship build began, as so many builds, as an adaptation of something I saw a better player do. It must have been over a year ago that I was watching sPsDEBO's stream as he Thor dropped on maps like Blistering Sands, Lost Temple, pre-fix Delta Quadrant and Jungle Basin, making use of some unfortunate map topography to really abuse the mobility of the Medivac and the strength of the Thor. Although queens were appreciably faster off of creep, the Thorship was still pretty effective-- you could 1-shot drones and crap all over queens.

It's always been pretty easy to slip a Thorship harass in before lair tech, and assuming you microed carefully, you could preserve the Thor, deal some damage, cover for your expo, and on certain maps (DQ and LT) dance all over his head. Zerg players had to specifically make Spine Crawlers and float overlords to deal with the Thorship cliff drop threat. This was overall pretty bad.

With time, maps became more balanced, and Thorship became a riskier and smaller-windowed harass. You still needed to get out of there before lair tech, but with Zerg players getting 3rd (and in the case of Ice Fisher, 4th) queens quickly coupled with a sudden dearth of truly abusable cliffs, even flying near the Zerg base at all meant putting yourself in great danger.

I'd finally gotten enough effective APM (you need ~80) to perform Thorship harass, but the window in the Sc2 metagame in which Thorship was effective had closed. It's pretty obvious if you're Thorshipping; fast double gas, tech lab Factory with nothing researching, fast Medivac (even an armory if you can find that) all together mean it must be Thorship. Although there's a possibility in these scenarios of tank drop or red flame hellion drop, the response to any of these is to get an extra queen and some crawlers or roaches to kill the dropped unit.

I realized that Thorship would need to acquire a new flavor and set of goals to remain relevant in the new TvZ meta. Thorship traditionally targeted down stray lings, and drones in the mineral line. I had begun using a Thor/marine all-in against Zerg, and I realized that although it was unrealistic to deal severe income damage with Thorship, careful control might let me deal larvae damage.

Rarely would a Zerg player be able to hold the follow-up attack.

General Theory I: Larvae Harassment[Top]A fundamental difference between Zerg and Terran (and there are many, no doubt) is that of production facilities. How many marines, marauders, tanks etc a Terran player can make is determined mostly by his production facilities. Except insofar as it affects his ability to afford SCVs, Terran can produce as much as he wants and still economically develop optimally. Expansion timing plays into this, as an earlier CC means you'll have less minerals to dump into, say, more Rax and marines, but note Zerg's choice is still harder than Terran's.

A rather obvious observation is that every larvae becomes either an Overlord, a Drone, or a combat unit. Which combat unit it becomes varies from Zerglings to expensive units like Ultralisks. Still, in the early game, the larva’s flexibility is sharply limited; before Lair tech, common Larvae uses are:

Now granted, the Roach costs effectively 25 more minerals due to supply costs, and the Zergling Pair or 1 Bane 1 Zergling costs 12.5 more minerals due to supply costs, but we still note that units are resource-cheap and larvae-expensive, whereas statics are larvae-cheap but resource-expensive.

Ultimately, the flexibility and strength of Zerg comes from efficient and effective allocation of Larvae. Any harass seeks ultimately not to control the Zerg income economy, but rather, the Zerg Larva economy, since a Zerg can drone very quickly to replace his mineral line.

Example: You harass a Zerg player who has the optimal saturation of 22 drones on each base (16 minerals, 6 vespene) with some hellions. You kill a total of 8 drones, and bleed 3 hellions before you extract the last one, pulling it out and flying it away from his nasty roaches. You've traded 300 minerals of hellions for 400 minerals of drones. Not bad. The Zerg player's 2 larvae injects pop (or maybe just popped) and he either slaps down 8 drones to recover from the harassment, or, having scouted that you're all-inning him, slaps down a bunch of roaches or ling/bane instead of rebuilding his economy.

As you can see there is a certain amount of flexibility from the Zerg player, but it is a Sophie's Choice situation if his larvae are limited. Let's imagine another situation.

Example: You harass a Zerg player who has the optimal saturation of 22 drones on each base (16 minerals, 6 vespene) with 2 banshees. You kill a total of 6 drones and a queen, and lose 1 banshee on the way out. You've traded 150/100 for 450 minerals. Not bad. The Zerg player's 1 larvae inject pops (he only has 1 because he lost a queen) and he either slaps down 4 drones to partially recover from the harassment, or, having scouted that you're all-inning him, uses his larvae to make roaches or ling/bane instead of rebuilding his economy.You can see that, deprived of larvae, the Zerg player is in a much tighter corner. It takes 17 seconds to make a round of drones, and so a Zerg player would gladly trade 100 minerals of drones for 100 minerals of hellions (plus 17 seconds mining time for 2 drones), since making economy and army are the same thing for him. He'd much rather trade Zerglings, but only because they'd trade more efficiently; a larva is a larva.

It's for this reason that any sort of larvae-based harass struggles against the influences of Spanishiwa's legendary Ice Fisher ZvX opening (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=207017).

Spanishiwa is part of a small and elite group of people who wrote build orders on TL that demonstrated or revealed great insight into the game. For Spanishiwa, this meant realizing the chief limitation on Zerg production early on is larvae-- and that overcoming this meant using larvae-efficient crawlers and queens. For this reason, any sort of larvae-targeted harass (sniping queens, etc) is ineffective against Spanishiwa's build, and I'd consider his build to be build order win against any sort of Thor harass, simply due to the fact that killing queens with a Thor will not slow down his larva production, and his AA damage output will usually drop the Medivac

General Theory II: Distinctive Traits & Thor Preservation[Top]When we talk about Thor harass and the "Thorship" concept, we must first begin by asking what it is that distinguishes a Thor harass from other forms of harass (eg. banshees, hellions, reaper). Chiefly, what distinguishes these harasses from each other are the level of commitment required, the transitions available, and the potential damage output. That is to say, what does it cost you, and what can it give you?

Well, one notable thing is that the Thorship requires you have a Starport. It will necessarily put on the pressure more slowly than, say, a hellion or reaper opening. However, with a sufficiently early second gas, the Thor and the Medivac can both be produced and moving across the map in a timely fashion, not later than a cloak banshee attack. In terms of timing, this is comparable to any sort of Starport-based 1 base harass play, be it vikings, drop rush, or cloak rush.

The other thing the Thorship requires you to do is, well, build a quick Thor. This large investiture of minerals and vespene gas delays any potential expansion a great deal, and represents a significant early-game investment into tech. The armory itself provides little value, basically adding to the cost of the Thor. Unlike reaper and hellion harasses, this sort of opening will necessarily delay any expansions significantly. Unlike 2 Rax, and drop rushes, this sort of opening also produces units that are not part of the standard TvZ composition, further hindering transitions into a standard midgame. Although a Thor is indeed a common element of a late Terran army, it is traditionally not incorporated into the marine/tank/Medivac composition unless there are a large number of Mutalisks being brought to bear.

We have therefore established that the Thorship is essentially the most costly harasses a Terran player can execute against a Zerg Although it's conceivable a Terran may rush for Battlecruiser and attempt to harass with that (a more costly harass, indeed), it would be enormously unlikely to succeed and profoundly unwise to attempt. Given these costs, we must certainly anticipate a strong benefit for such a build to be worthwhile.

The benefit of the Thor harass is twofold, and both are contingent on strength of the Thor. Whereas reapers, hellions, and banshees each suffer numerous drawbacks and counters from the hatch-tech Zerg's arsenal (speedlings, crawlers, roaches, and queens), the Thorship harass is largely immune to or able to circumvent traditional Zerg anti-harass tools. The first of these tools is the noble crawler. Spine Crawlers are effective against marines and hellions, and due to the fact that these harasses attack by ground, there is little else to say about it-- spine crawlers are good. Banshees, Reapers, and Thorship all posses to tools needed to mitigate crawlers and simcities. Although spore crawlers are nominally able to beat Banshees, banshees are mobile and choose not to engage them. Thors don't care about crawlers and can beat them in direct fights relatively easily. The next tool is the Queen. Thors crap all over queens. The final tools, which I will lump together in the case of the Thor, are lings and roaches. A good number of lings and roaches can take down an unsupported Thor with minimal losses. However, no number of lings and roaches can take down a Medivac, and that is where the Thorship shines-- there is no set of Zerg defenses against which a Thorship cannot deal some damage. It is only against a large number of queens (3 with quick reactions and connected creep) on conjunction with a strong land army that the Thorship is forced to back off without engaging inside the Zerg base-- the mobile AA of the queens prevents the sort of drop micro necessary to mitigate the ground damage output of lings and roaches. The Thor drop is, therefore, capable of enormous damage output even against a relatively prepared opponent.

The other benefit of a Thor drop rush is that it provides you with a Thor. Assuming your micro is careful, there's no reason you should lose the Thor in the Thor drop build. Zerg will not have mutalisks or fungal, and with the mobility of the Medivac and the quick loading and unloading of the Thor, you will be able to disengage at will. Although an early-game Thor is of sharply limited use in regular situations, it's still a valuable tool fighting against roaches and banelings in the event of an early attack from either player following the harassment. Whereas reapers, banshees, and hellions all are not represented in standard TvZ (though hellions have a place in Mech), the Thor, if preserved, can eventually become a seamless part of a standard army, and is an invaluable asset in all-in situations.

The Thorship is thus distinguished from other harasses. It is costly in the extreme, but is capable of overwhelming common defenses and if handled properly provides you a powerful unit during early all-in situations and standard unit later on. Due to the high cost of this harass, however, the follow-up is most effective as an all-in as opposed to an expansion. Taking two gasses, making a Starport, an armory, and a Thor, all before expanding, will obviate the ability of the Terran to enter into a macro game in a reasonable fashion. The high early-game effectiveness of the Thor, however, will make him strong.

Start producing marines again. Constantly produce Thors out of your Factory. When the Medivac finishes, add a tech lab to the Starport and constantly produce banshees. Add 2 more barracks as you bank up minerals and constantly produce marines.

Your thor should pop at about 7:20, with your medivac popping a few seconds later.

Execution[Top]The execution of this build is broken into three portions. First, you begin by harassing with your viking-- you clear away overlords, stray zerglings, and try to make the zerg player very sad. Secondly, you execute the thorship harass itself-- killing queens, drones, whatever you can afford to. Lastly, you all-in with your thor-based army, and hopefully crush the puny zerg beneath your heel. I'm now going to describe how exactly you should go about doing this.

Phase 1: Viking Harass[Top]So let's talk for a moment about decision-making. The goals of your viking harassment, in order of importance, are:A) Clear an Overlord- and Zergling- free path for the thorship to travelB) Kill OverlordsC) Be a dickSo here's how the average zerg player responds to the viking poking around-- he retracts his overlords, makes an extra queen (if he's not supply blocked), and sometimes makes a spore crawler if he's anticipating banshees. He pulls his overlords back from the map, abdicating the ability to see the thorship coming.

Your viking has enough time to make a couple of diversions to kill lone lings or ovies, but then will have to fly the flight path your thorship will take, to clear out any ovies in that area so that you can get into his base without him knowing.

You will almost always get 1 overlord kill this way, but on some maps you can get upwards of 3.

Phase 2: Thorship[Top]This is the fun part. This is why you're here. A little after your viking pops, your thor does, then your medivac pops a few seconds later. Load the thor into the medivac and fly along the route your viking has cleared. Your goal is to not let the zerg see your thorship until you are basically in his base. Remember that the thor is visible beneath the medivac, so he will know exactly what's coming if he sees it.

Your thor's target priority AI works like this:A) Enemy ground units attacking the thor within 7 range.B) Overlords, any overlords, anywhere within like a screen length.C) Stuff you actually want to kill.

Phase 2 Subsection 2: DecisionmakingAs you enter the enemy base you need to quickly determine how many roaches he has nearby, and the presence/absence of spine crawlers, queens, and speedlings. Your goal is to drop your thor basically on top of his Queen, then focus it down. Putting the thor in melee with the queen will reduce the surface area for lings. However, avoid entering the AA envelope of a spore crawler or several queens, as you will be unable to fly in and pick up your Thor. The only time it is ok to do so is if his ground forces are weak enough the Thor can fight its way to the edge of the AA envelope for extraction, or kill the AA units itself.

One trick to attack an overlord with a viking to pull the queens off creep to get killed. Remember, the Thor will gladly disengage from major ground battles to fire at overlords within 10 range, putting its attack on cooldown for several crucial seconds. Also, a thor near a mineral line and an overlord will spend several years killing the overlord unless you manually tell him to kill drones. You can also sometimes find lone queens at the edge of the creep planting tumors. Remember, engage only when you're sure you can win.

It's okay to drop the thor into zerglings to snipe a queen, and if you can drop him in melee with the queen or up against a hatchery (or both), you can vastly reduce the damage he takes from the lings. It's less okay to drop a thor into roaches or roach/ling, but if it's a small number of roaches, the thor can afford to tank it to kill the queen.

Your medivac should under no circumstances be shot by a spore crawler. Any situation where you're thinking about flying into the AA envelope of a spore crawler, ask yourself if it's really worth losing your medivac, because spore crawlers hit like trucks. I can count on my two hands the number of times I've flown into a spore crawler's AA envelope when thorshipping. I can count on my right hand the number of times it turned out to actually be a good idea in my hundred games.

Never fly near 3 queens. Be careful flying up to 2 queens-- don't drop the thor in melee, your Medivac will take too much damage going in and out. Flying up to 1 queen is acceptable.

If you fly into a base and see 3 queens and connected creep, probe for areas where his queens can't reach easily and you can shoot the mineral line, buildings, etc. If there's no opportunities, just bail. The chief goal of Thorship is to preserve the Thor and the medivac during the thor drop. If your opponent has like 4 queens and a pile of roaches, that's damage done already to his economy. Bail.

Always clear Xel'Naga Towers on your way home. If your thor and medivac are relatively high-health, have them camp there and keep them cleared, or rove around denying creep tumors.

Phase 2 Subsection 3: Micro

How to unload a ThorSetup: Medivac is in motion, and you have it selected. A Thor is loaded inside. 1) Right-click to move the Medivac PAST the target landing zone.2) As the Medivac flies the landing zone, click on the wireframe of the Thor to unload it.3) Right-click to turn the Medivac around and send it to safety without losing momentum. During this time, the thor is going through it's abominably slow “unload” animation.4) Select the Thor and order it to attack the target.

How to pick up a ThorSetup: Medivac is in motion, and your Thor is on the ground.1) Right-click to move the Medivac PAST the target loading zone.2) [2 methods] A) Just as the Thor is about to be under the medivac, select the thor and right-click the medivac. The medivac will not change course or lose acceleration and will continue on its original course, giving you plenty of time to alter the course without losing momentum. B) Just as the Thor is about to be under the Medivac, select the medivac and right-click the thor. The Medivac will immediately start deceleration, so you must proceed to step 3 ASAP.3) Right-click to turn the Medivac around and send it to safety without losing momentum.

What to do with your MedivacWhile your thor is on the ground, your medivac should constantly be in motion at full speed near the Thor. Ideally, out of range of any queens, or constantly turning just above the thor if there are no queens about, for maximim speed extraction.

What to do with your VikingIf your viking took significant damage during the initial harass phase, look for easy overlords or scout around the map for unprotected overlords. If your viking took little damage, or his queens are all dead, kill overlords in his base.

Extracting Surrounded Thors from inside AA EnvelopesThis is only to be used in the direst of circumstances-- if, for example, your opponent surprises you after your Thor is on the ground with several queens or mobile spore crawlers, grounding it, and also surrounds it with enough lings that an escape by walking out of the AA envelope is unlikely. If your Thor can't kill his AA, is trapped, and your Medivac won't survive an extraction, the final act of desperation is to extract anyways, but lead with the viking to tank the queen and spore crawlers shots on the way in.

Against a slow opponent you can lead a fair amount with the viking, but a canny adversary will focus down the medivac.IT may make all the difference though to have the viking tank a few shots.

When the Medivac is over the thor, pick it up and get out of there as soon as you can. Your viking will die. I have tried this 3-4 times and it has never really worked, but it COULD.

What to do if he rushed mutalisk really really hard.If your opponent has mutalisks before 8:30 (which is possible, mind you), you probably should have been able to scout the lair with your scv scout. In the event you are being chased by a small pack of mutas, pick up your thor. Every 3 in-game seconds, drop the thor to fire its rockets. Keep on doing this until you're outside the zerg base and only have to worry about the mutalisks. Fly the Medivac far enough away it won't get splashed by glaives, and hurt the mutalisks until the thor is at about 1/3rd hp. Then pick it up while its shots are on cooldown to give it a little extra tanking in the form of the Medivac's hull. If you can fend off the mutalisks you can make it home and win with the marine/thor all-in-- he won't have roaches or banelings.

Phase 3: All In[Top]This is the easy part. When your first banshee pops, send it to clear out the xel naga towers (if your thorship isn't doing so already). When your 3rd thor pops, grab your thors, all your air units, all your marines, and 10-15 auto-repairing scvs, and move out. You will have a scanner sweep come up as you arrive at the zerg player's natural.

Your goal is to destroy his army, crush his spirit, and devour his soul with your unstoppable allin. Thors tank and get repaired, and destroy high-hp units with their ranged shots. Marines provide filler dps. Banshees target down high priority units and provide damage against roaches. Scvs repair, and coupled with the medivac forces the zerg to engage you basically all in one go, or else you'll heal up in between fights. Your viking here will be important for picking off overlords, providing a little range and "finishing power" (after 2 thor shots, to avoid overkilling) on mutas.

Even if zerg has a natural expansion, unless it's directly along your attack route, go for his natural then head into his main.

Zerg has a small number of options for defense at this point in the game. Here are the defenses I've seen:

Countering Zerg Defenses to the Thor All-in

Lair/Mutalisk Rush:Mutalisk Rush off 2 base is build order loss. Even with perfect baneling hits, you can't stop 3 thors from crushing the ~5 magic-boxed mutalisks a zerg will have at this time. He simply won't have the roaches and banes to pose a credible threat:

Ling/Bane DefenseThis defense forgoes roaches for ling/bane, and is one of the deadliest ways a zerg can defend the all-in. You need to split well, and not lose too many marines. Ideally you want to keep all your scvs alive to repair your units after the fight. His goal is to clear out your light units the clean up your thors with lings or his second wave.

1) split2) focus fire units onto banelings3) in the final defense of your vital repairing scvs, jump them into your medivac just at the moment of impact4) use drop micro and repair micro to clean up afterwards

Roach or Ling/Roach Defense:This is the most common kind of defense. Usually supplemented with a few extra queens. The zerg player, knowing you are making thors, makes roaches. The important elements of micro in these engagement are repair micro, pulling back targetted marines, and pulling back focused-down thors using your medivac. Gradually cycle your way backwards, picking up weak thors and pulling them a few squares back to be safely healed while continuing to fight. This drop micro vastly increases the damage output of your thors and their overall survivability. It also looks sweet and demoralizes your opponent.

Hybrid (Roach/Bane) Defense:This is the most technical defense. It combines the ability fight thors of a Roach defense with the ability to clear out scvs of a ling/bane defense. It's also the most gas-intensive, and it's what a smart Zerg will do if he realizes ano all-in of this kind is coming. You need to split, and you also need to drop micro, and you also need to repair micro and pull scvs into medivacs as necessary. This is the only kind of defense that has ever successfully defended a Thor all-in in which I didn't derp the thor harass. It's what a zerg player uses if you play him twice in a row with this build.

It is the best defense. To fight this, you have to use every trick in the book. He will have the burst damage of banelings plus the staying power of roaches. There will be queens. Brace yourself. Split your marines, pull back your scvs, and do your best to weather the baneling storm. If there are too many banelings, save 8 scvs in the medivac, then drop them back down to repair the thors in the ensuing fight with the roaches. Afterwards, focus on drop micro the save your thors. Remember that thors 3-shot roaches, so 3 thors, properly coordinated, will 1-shot a roach so he can't micro it back.

Questions and Answers[Top]Q: Why did you write this guide? Won't people figure out how to counter this and you'll lose your 85% winrate in TvZ?A: That's exactly the point. This build has been holding me back. Due to my TvZ, my MMR is too high-- I can't find TvT or TvP matches at my level, so I lose 30% of my TvT and 40% of my TvP. Furthermore, my ability to play standard in TvZ has become incredibly bad. This build has been poison for me. I made a pact with the devil when I made this build-- it brought me MMR and promotions and opponents of skill beyond measure, but I paid a dear price for it. I have become it. I am the gimmick. This is the only way I can free myself, the only way to absolve my skills. Come, friend, and learn this build. Use it. Let people learn how to fight it. Partake from it, that I may become free of it.

Q: How long is this guide?A: This guide is 5000 words, 7000 with Q&A.

Q: Blazinghand how did you come to be so sexy?A: It's not easy, my friend. I go to the gym several times a week, and sometimes I even jog and stuff. Maybe someday you could be as sexy as me, or if you really try, as sexy as iNcontrol. He gets all the hot babes. The man has trouble moving through crowded areas because chicks are trying to get all up on him. I heard this on the internet so it must be true.

Q:

On January 10 2012 19:43 peppilepew wrote:im just wondering blaze , wat time does your thor land at? most zergs make a big round of lings at roughly6.30 7.00 mins, (wen playing ling festor atleast) is it before that or? if not i dont understand how this does alot of dmg

A: Thor leaves base at 7:20. No number of lings (no matter how numerous!) can actually save a queen. If you drop a thor into melee with a queen, you can get off the 4 shots to kill it before it can escape or the lings can kill it, even if the lings are right there. You use drop micro the preserve the thor and pick your engagement. I've never flown into a zerg base and not encountered extreme resistance-- the medivac gives you the micro flexibility to overcome that resistance or circumvent it.

On February 12 2012 03:29 Brutaxilos wrote:Hi, great thread got a quick question though. I am a high gold random player facing mid to high platinums 90% of the time. TvZ is my absolute worst matchup. Would my opponents be skilled enough that I can use this on? Also, when you extract your thor is it better to go back to your base for repair or attack another area? Thanks.

A: If you're trying to get better at TvZ, This build will NOT help you. It is an all-in that uses micro that's unrelated to standard play, and the only macro that happens is one base. If you want to improve your TvZ as your weakest matchup, I'd recommend learning a Reactor Hellion Expand or some other standard play.

Q:

On February 12 2012 00:37 TangSC wrote:Cool build, I may try this - although I feel like you're taking a big risk in hoping your zerg opponent doesn't attack. There's no way you can really scout with this build, so if Zerg opens hatch first into an eco-baneling bust, roach/ling, or even roach/ling/baneling I don't see much defensive potential.

On February 11 2012 21:32 Blazinghand wrote:OK guys, we get a fresh new batch of replays. As I scramble and try to clear my bonus pool for this season, I find myself all-inning in some of my TvZs... and for me that means thorship.

In the replay against Marine (Z): He rushes for Infestor off 2 base and gets brutalized. The BM that began at the opening of the game only ramps up as he realizes his sad, doomed fate. It's hard to say what motivated his BM, but was strong indeed. He felt like the game was unfair, which, well, it is, if you rush lair. I particularly enjoyed this one.

In the replay against Marineforger (Z): He goes for a 2 base roach bust, a profoundly unwise choice against a 1-basing terran. I bleed a few depots and some marines, and the thorship is able to terrorize his mineral line and queens unmolested. The followup all-in is basically a formality. As a fellow all-inner, he sends me a respectful "gg" before tapping out. Somehow, I think we understood each other.

In the replay against lunar (Z): He goes for a 28-drone baneling bust with 8 banelings, 24 zerglings. He busts the wall but can't overwhelm thor #2. He loses a creep queen and a couple overlords. He rushes for lair afterwards. Realizing too late his folly, he begins a lair and powers up to 44 drones in an attempt to mass roaches. As a fellow all-inner, he "ggs" before leaving. I think we knew eachother well this game as well.

In the replay against MohuRaN (Z): This is really the crowing achievement of my night. This guy held the all-in with a muta rush (lost all the mutas, but held it). So I made three more thors and allinned again ^^ and it worked. I can only imagine the horror when he realized the same all-in was coming and he didn't have any banelings this time around ^^

I even cut the VoD from my stream just so you can witness the miracle firsthand if you'd like:

Sometimes, when playing standard, I almost forget the pure joy that is utilizing this micro-heavy idiosyncratic all-in.

Wtf up with that depot placement in that vod?

And 2nd off, I think tang has a point. How do you scout a econ bust, or roach ling, or roach ling bane rushes? I feel you have no map control until that single viking comes out to clear the way for the thor.

A: This is a good question! Thanks for asking. If you take a look at my most recent replay pack, two of the zergs all-in me-- one with banelings and one with roaches. If you look through the lifetime replay pack there are countless replays of zergs trying to all-in with some mixture of roaches, lings, and banes, and you can see how I deal with it. Unfortunately, a lot of how I deal with all-ins and the like is situational depending on how many depots etc he kills (and he WILL kill some depots) but I'll do my best to explain in detail what I do to fight these all-ins. In general, though, once you have a Thor out you're bulletproof, and if you're worried you just wall super hard. I'm talking every prod fac, every depot at the top of your ramp.

My scv scout's goal is to see his hatchery and gas timing. If I scout a 1-basing zerg, well, I just read the "Terran handbook" and make a bunker since he's also 1-basing. This is pretty rare. If he goes hatch-first and doesn't take any gasses before my scv is dead, any aggression will be so late I'll be able to defend it. If I scout a hatch-first that has a gas, I assume he's gonna have some sort of garbage coming so I wall the top of my ramp with every building but the armory. This almost always buys enough time to get a thor and a dropship out, and then I just micro my way to victory. The wall won't stop the all-in, but it'll buy time. Expensive time, but valuable time:+ Show Spoiler [The Great Wall] +

In terms of map control against the zerg, your viking is only popping out like 45 seconds later than the first two hellions of a reactor hellion expand, and it's SO ANNOYING for the zerg player :D You are admittedly working with less map control than a reactor hellion expand, but somewhat more than a 1 rax reaper expand or 1 rax FE. In any case, your initial "getting up in his grill" should get started between 6:10 an 6:20 depending on where he's hiding his scouting overlord and/or whether or not he already tried to sacrifice it. + Show Spoiler [Ready to Plunder] +

In any case, against eco busts with like 30 drones (as opposed to all-in busts with fewer) you will always have your thor out in time to defend, and there's no bust that's good against a well-microed thorship. + Show Spoiler [Thor Timing and Roach Timing] +

In any case, I'd characterize this build as entirely safe against all-ins, or as safe as a terran build CAN be without blindly making bunkers.

Replay Pack (Lifetime Master League)This Replay Pack contains every ladder TvZ Thorship I've ever done. Of the 96 games, 84 of them are wins. 3 of the losses are against opponents I was matched up against twice on the ladder. Several of the victories are the same wayhttp://drop.sc/packs/423

Replay Pack (Season 5 Twilight)OK guys, we get a fresh new batch of replays. As I scramble and try to clear my bonus pool for this season, I find myself all-inning in some of my TvZs... and for me that means thorship.http://drop.sc/packs/524+ Show Spoiler +

Several gems for you connoisseurs this time around.

In the replay against Marine (Z): He rushes for Infestor off 2 base and gets brutalized. The BM that began at the opening of the game only ramps up as he realizes his sad, doomed fate. It's hard to say what motivated his BM, but was strong indeed. He felt like the game was unfair, which, well, it is, if you rush lair. I particularly enjoyed this one.

In the replay against Marineforger (Z): He goes for a 2 base roach bust, a profoundly unwise choice against a 1-basing terran. I bleed a few depots and some marines, and the thorship is able to terrorize his mineral line and queens unmolested. The followup all-in is basically a formality. As a fellow all-inner, he sends me a respectful "gg" before tapping out. Somehow, I think we understood each other.

In the replay against lunar (Z): He goes for a 28-drone baneling bust with 8 banelings, 24 zerglings. He busts the wall but can't overwhelm thor #2. He loses a creep queen and a couple overlords. He rushes for lair afterwards. Realizing too late his folly, he begins a lair and powers up to 44 drones in an attempt to mass roaches. As a fellow all-inner, he "ggs" before leaving. I think we knew eachother well this game as well.

In the replay against MohuRaN (Z): This is really the crowing achievement of my night. This guy held the all-in with a muta rush (lost all the mutas, but held it). So I made three more thors and allinned again ^^ and it worked. I can only imagine the horror when he realized the same all-in was coming and he didn't have any banelings this time around ^^

I even cut the VoD from my stream just so you can witness the miracle firsthand if you'd like:

I'd like to thank Debo for helping inspire this build, and being a hilarious streamer in general. Thanks to all the extremely sad zerg players who died horribly to this build and feeding me their ladder points. Thanks to my stream viewers, and docthemedic in particular, for encouraging me to write this guide. I'd also like to thank wo1fwood for his article on TL BBCode (link)-- his knowledge helped me format this post.

Unfortunately, I do this in laddering sessions which are buried in my entirely unorganized VoDs. If people are interested I could stream a replay, but there are a couple replay packs up there if you want to look for yourself.

im just wondering blaze , wat time does your thor land at? most zergs make a big round of lings at roughly6.30 7.00 mins, (wen playing ling festor atleast) is it before that or? if not i dont understand how this does alot of dmg

On January 10 2012 19:43 peppilepew wrote:im just wondering blaze , wat time does your thor land at? most zergs make a big round of lings at roughly6.30 7.00 mins, (wen playing ling festor atleast) is it before that or? if not i dont understand how this does alot of dmg

Thor leaves base at 7:20. No number of lings (no matter how numerous!) can actually save a queen. If you drop a thor into melee with a queen, you can get off the 4 shots to kill it before it can escape or the lings can kill it, even if the lings are right there. You use drop micro the preserve the thor and pick your engagement. I've never flown into a zerg base and not encountered extreme resistance-- the medivac gives you the micro flexibility to overcome that resistance or circumvent it.

On January 10 2012 19:43 peppilepew wrote:im just wondering blaze , wat time does your thor land at? most zergs make a big round of lings at roughly6.30 7.00 mins, (wen playing ling festor atleast) is it before that or? if not i dont understand how this does alot of dmg

Thor leaves base at 7:20. No number of lings (no matter how numerous!) can actually save a queen. If you drop a thor into melee with a queen, you can get off the 4 shots to kill it before it can escape or the lings can kill it, even if the lings are right there. You use drop micro the preserve the thor and pick your engagement. I've never flown into a zerg base and not encountered extreme resistance-- the medivac gives you the micro flexibility to overcome that resistance or circumvent it.

On January 10 2012 20:29 XRaDiiX wrote:I actually think i faced you or someone doing this build on Ladder.

I crushed them (Masters League) and ended up 4 base Zerg vs his 1 base Terran because he couldn't expand after my roach baneling queen held off his scouted Thor/scv/banshee/marine Cheese.

He kept picking up the Thor and flying it back to his base to Repair when it got low. But he lost way too many SCV's failing like a scrub.

I held it off and laughed at him while i expanded and had 4-bases to his one base!

Stay classy...

Probably a good thing for you to get this guide out now and focus on more "solid" play - Thor-builds are gonna be pretty useless once HotS comes out Awesome guide, though, one of the best written on the site, me thinks.

EU High Masters Protoss ~ Grubby: "I'd rather play a strategy that is worse, but that I feel confident in, than play the better strategy, not really feeling it and not being 100% behind it" ~ Sad Zealot Fan </3

All I can say is that these Zergs don't even deserve to be in Masters. I've watched every replay in Season 5. First of all, none of them sac OLs. You need to be sending in 2 OLs from 2 positions against 1 base Terran. 3 marines won't prevent him from at least seeing the early Starport, or the armory. Once your Viking pops, and you start clearing OLs, that is a telltale sign a drop is coming. You should have 3 queens, so they should instantly inject, then run up to where the drop should be coming from, and making around 10 lings to fight ground army drop. Once they see a Thor drop, and still no expo, Thor all in is obvious. The guy on ST should have held it, but he engaged terribly. He made way too many banelings, and didn't use a surrounding flank. You only need around 8-10 banes, and the rest ling roach.

None of the Zergs you played ever even reached optimal saturation of 44 drones in 10 minutes, even the ones that took little damage from the Thor harass.

On January 10 2012 20:29 XRaDiiX wrote:I actually think i faced you or someone doing this build on Ladder.

I crushed them (Masters League) and ended up 4 base Zerg vs his 1 base Terran because he couldn't expand after my roach baneling queen held off his scouted Thor/scv/banshee/marine Cheese.

He kept picking up the Thor and flying it back to his base to Repair when it got low. But he lost way too many SCV's failing like a scrub.

I held it off and laughed at him while i expanded and had 4-bases to his one base!

Stay classy...

Probably a good thing for you to get this guide out now and focus on more "solid" play - Thor-builds are gonna be pretty useless once HotS comes out Awesome guide, though, one of the best written on the site, me thinks.

Yeah something tells me it will be hard to fit a fusion core in >.>

On January 11 2012 01:15 Flonomenalz wrote:All I can say is that these Zergs don't even deserve to be in Masters. I've watched every replay in Season 5. First of all, none of them sac OLs. You need to be sending in 2 OLs from 2 positions against 1 base Terran. 3 marines won't prevent him from at least seeing the early Starport, or the armory. Once your Viking pops, and you start clearing OLs, that is a telltale sign a drop is coming. You should have 3 queens, so they should instantly inject, then run up to where the drop should be coming from, and making around 10 lings to fight ground army drop. Once they see a Thor drop, and still no expo, Thor all in is obvious. The guy on ST should have held it, but he engaged terribly. He made way too many banelings, and didn't use a surrounding flank. You only need around 8-10 banes, and the rest ling roach.

None of the Zergs you played ever even reached optimal saturation of 44 drones in 10 minutes, even the ones that took little damage from the Thor harass.

This makes me wonder how I'm stuck in diamond...

;_; it's an ugly world my friend

Actually the zergs that bother me more (in terms of decision-making) are the ones that take a 3rd base and try to drone THAT up vs a 1-basing terran. I really don't understand why they do that, and they always lose.

On January 11 2012 01:57 Aletheia27 wrote:Cool guide. Although I disagree about the muta rush, seeing as my staple build now is a form of "muta rush." We should test it.